The Truth in the Gambler
by WolfGirl1331
Summary: Episode tag for The Murder in the Middle East. Where do Booth and Brennan go from here?


**SPOILERS AHEAD: This story takes up after The Murder in the Middle East so there are spoilers for that episode if you haven't seen it yet.**

 **So this week's episode was pretty brutal for our favorite couple (and us viewers). My muse has been MIA for months but suddenly reappeared at the end of the episode with this story fully formed. Perhaps she thought I needed consoling. She was right. I hope you like it. Reviews are always appreciated.**

 **NB: Although Ralph Waite sadly passed away last year, as far as we know the character of Hank Booth (Pops) is still alive in the Bones universe since his death has never been mentioned on the show. I love his character and he will be appearing in this story.**

" _Without the truth we have nothing."_

Brennan's words circled around and around in Booth's head as he waited at the reception desk of the cheap motel he had wandered into after his wife had abruptly dismissed him from their family home. He had considered stopping at a bar first, but between the stress of his fight with Brennan and the jetlag after his flight from Iran, the exhaustion had driven him to seek out a place he could crash for the night. Tapping his fingers impatiently on the counter, Booth sighed and glanced dejectedly around the dimly lit lobby.

How had it come to this?

Over a decade without making a single bet, playing a single poker game, using a single slot machine. Years spent building a life and a career that he could be proud of, that gave him the kind of happiness and satisfaction he had once believed would be impossible after all the horrors he had seen and done. His heart started to race in his chest as the anxiety he had felt since leaving the house began to intensify into a mind-numbing fear that he had irrevocably damaged the most important thing in his life: Brennan's trust in him.

"Here's your room key, Mr. Booth."

Startled out of his reverie, Booth wordlessly took the key from the motel manager and made his way towards the elevator. He stabbed his finger into the button, letting his head fall backwards as he stared at the digital readout of the floor numbers as they slowly descended.

4 … 3 … 2 … 1

The numbers turned over at a maddeningly slow rate and Booth began to tap the room key card impatiently against his thigh. All he wanted was to be alone and contemplate the utter mess he had made of his life and his marriage. Finally, the number read 0 and the doors parted to allow Booth to step inside. Realizing that he hadn't heard the manager tell him his room number, he glanced at the key card and pushed the 3 on the elevator panel.

As the doors closed and the elevator began to move, Booth could no longer deny the crushing loneliness and despair he felt. He was facing a night alone in a crappy motel away from his family, and all he could think about was how final Brennan's words had felt when she had demanded that he leave their home.

Brennan was all about truth and trust, and he had betrayed both.

There had been no discussion, no chance to try and explain himself. She had asked him a direct question, having already obtained the necessary evidence against him, and he had lied to her face. To Brennan, that was unacceptable, and quite possibly unforgiveable.

Booth shook his head in denial of that last thought as he exited the elevator and made his way to his room at the end of the hall. The idea that Brennan might never forgive him was unbearable, and so instead Booth forced his focus onto the mundane tasks of unpacking his meager belongings and getting himself ready for bed.

As he turned out the light and settled himself under the covers, Booth tried to ignore the cold and empty space beside him.

)()()()()()()(

Brennan had barely slept all night.

Her tossing and turning had also disturbed her unborn child's slumber, and the insistent kicking against her ribs had only served as a painful reminder of the happiness she and Booth had shared before she had become aware of his deception.

Dragging herself from their bed and into the shower had taken far more effort than usual, and Brennan found that her considerable skills at compartmentalizing her emotions were woefully inadequate at coping with the pain and anger she was feeling towards her husband.

How could he lie to her like that?

After everything they had been through; after so many years of denying their feelings and struggling with the pain and trauma in their pasts; after finally coming through it all and building a life together – how could Booth betray her this way?

The question had haunted Brennan all through the night as she had tried and failed to make sense of Booth's actions.

He was a gambling addict, of this she had always been aware, but the fact that he had kept it under control for all the years they had known each other had allowed Brennan to push it aside as if it didn't exist. She had never forgotten about it – Brennan rarely forgot about anything – but over the years she had irrationally allowed herself to believe that Booth would never relapse, or if he did, that he would tell her about it and they would deal with it together.

The complexities and compulsions of addiction were wrapped up in the vagaries of psychology, and not for the first time since she had discovered Booth's lies, Brennan desperately wished that Sweets were still alive to help her understand them.

As much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, Booth's deception had called into question everything they had together, and Brennan had spent the night unsuccessfully trying to combat the fear that she would never be able to fully trust him again.

Forcing down some toast for the baby's sake, Brennan hurried through her breakfast and turned her attention to getting ready to pick up Christine from her father's house. As she gathered her things and made her way out to the car, Brennan tried not to think about the sadness she was about to cause her daughter when she explained that her father would not be there to greet her when she got home.

)()()()()()()(

Stiff and tired from a restless night, Booth stretched out his muscles as he waited on a bench outside his grandfather's nursing home.

Visiting Pops had not been his first instinct that morning. No. His first impulse upon waking from a fitful sleep had been to rush home and beg his wife's forgiveness, but after pacing the small motel room while he waited for the cheap coffee to brew, he decided giving Brennan her space would be a better idea for now.

"Hey, Shrimp!"

Booth forced a smile as he got to his feet to greet his grandfather.

"Hey, Pops."

The two men embraced and sat side by side on the bench. Booth rested his hands in his lap, his fingers twisting uneasily as nervousness took hold. Maybe this was a bad idea. How could he tell Pops that he was gambling again?

Hank leant closer to him, "You okay there, Seeley? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see you, but I was kinda surprised to get your call. I thought you'd be busy at home, what with the new baby coming."

Booth nodded but said nothing. A frown began to etch itself across Hank's brow. Something was definitely wrong here.

"What's the matter, Seeley? Is Temperance okay? The baby? Christine?"

Booth shook his head to ward off the barrage of concern and leant back against the bench, sighing heavily.

"Then what?" Hank's voice became more insistent, "Hey, look at me."

Booth turned his face towards his grandfather's, too exhausted and miserable to disguise the emotions written there. As Hank continued to stare at him, suddenly the truth came rushing up from deep inside him with a force he could longer deny.

"I screwed up, Pops," Booth blurted out, "I screwed up and I don't know how to fix it."

Hank's frown grew deeper, but he attempted a light-hearted tone, "Oh, come on, Shrimp. You've got a beautiful wife and a daughter who love you, and another kid on the way. Things can't be that bad."

Sighing, Booth reached into his pants pocket and took out his wallet. Flipping it open he withdrew a slip of paper and wordlessly handed it to Hank.

Hank took it and stared at it for a moment, before his face fell into lines of deep sadness as he looked over at his grandson.

"Oh, Seeley."

Hank held the betting slip in his hand and tried to absorb what he was seeing. A $15,000 double or nothing bet on the Phillies game, which he knew they had lost, meaning Seeley was out $30,000, and a whole lot else besides, Hank realized.

"You're gambling again," he said needlessly, the irrefutable proof of it in his hand.

Booth simply nodded, having dropped his eyes to his lap, unable to meet his grandfather's gaze and the disappointment he feared he would find there.

"How did this happen, Seeley? What made you go back after all this time?"

That, Booth thought sadly, was both the easiest and the hardest question to answer. That was the problem with addiction. He hadn't decided to gamble again. Hadn't woken up one morning and decided to throw away over a decade of sobriety on a bet. He prided himself on always catching the bad guy, and if entering a poker game was what it took to do it, then he would. He was just doing his job, he had reasoned, like he always did. Once the case was solved and the murderer in custody, he would walk away. He was in control. Until he wasn't.

Sitting at that poker table, the news of Brennan's pregnancy still singing in his mind, had brought it all back to him. The rush. The need to win and keep winning. The certainty that the next bet would be the one. He had walked away from a great hand to arrest the suspect, but by then it was too late. He was hooked again, and the love and happiness of his life with Brennan and Christine had allowed him to convince himself that he was in control this time. That he could gamble as he pleased without it taking over his life.

As Booth turned to his grandfather and tried to find the words to explain how things had come to this, he began to question himself for the first time. He had been in control, hadn't he? A stab of pain shot through his heart when he thought of Jimmy turning up at the house, a threat to his family that he had brought into their lives. With a shuddering breath he was forced to face the truth: the control was never his. The addiction had controlled him all along.

Over the next few minutes, Booth recounted the events that had led him to visit Hank. When it came time to admit that he had placed his family in danger, Booth couldn't look at his Pops and instead focused on the ground at his feet, wishing that he could sink into it somehow and disappear.

When he was finished, Hank sighed heavily then cleared his throat and spoke with determined conviction, "Okay, so what are you going to do about it?"

"Huh?" Booth had been expecting a reprimand, words of anger and disappointment, not a call to action.

"I said," Hank leant forward, forcing Booth to look at him, "what are you going to do about it? You're right. You screwed up. Big time. Now you have to man up and take responsibility for what you've done."

Stabbing the air with his finger, Hank continued firmly, "You're going to go home and tell Temperance that you'll do whatever it takes to earn back her trust and your place in your family."

Frustrated at being confronted so directly, Booth replied, "It's not that simple, Pops, okay? Bones threw me out, she said she didn't believe me when I said I loved her, she doesn't want me there."

"I don't think so!" Hank's voice took on a greater insistence, "You think Temperance wanted to kick you out? That she'd have done that if she thought there was any other way to make you face what you've become?"

The question stopped Booth in his tracks. Brennan's demand that he leave their home had felt so abrupt and final that part of him had resented her for not giving him a chance to explain. He thought back to their last conversation. The image of Brennan's face just before he had turned to leave flashed before his eyes. How had he not seen it before? The pain, the betrayal, the fear, the regret; all the evidence there in his wife's eyes.

She had known the truth before she had confronted him, had more than likely run several scenarios through her brilliant mind as to how she would respond depending on what he said. Her decision had not been rushed, she had thought it through first. Rationalized it in a way she did everything else and concluded that if he refused to face up to his addiction then telling him to leave was her only option.

Booth squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his hands over his face. She had given him a chance to tell the truth, and if he had then maybe he wouldn't be here right now. But he had lied, and now here he was. He couldn't take it back, and he had no idea what to say to Brennan to make it right.

He felt Hank's hand settle gently on his arm, "Shrimp, you've beaten this beast in you before, you can do it again, but only if you stop lying to yourself and Temperance."

" _Without the truth we have nothing."_

Booth nodded slowly as he heard Brennan's words echo in his head for the hundredth time since she had uttered them. Pops was right.

)()()()()()()(

Brennan tried to calm her thoughts as she busied herself fixing a snack for Christine, who was now sulking in her room having pestered her mother all through the ride home from Max's about where her father was.

Brennan hadn't known what to tell her, so she had equivocated and continually attempted to change the subject, a choice which both confused and frustrated her very curious and precocious child.

Now, alone with her thoughts, snippets from the conversation she had had with her father floated through her mind.

" _You did the right thing, Tempe."_

" _Did I? What if I just made things worse?"_

" _Booth has to face up to the consequences of his actions. If you let him come home before he gets his act together then nothing will change. He has to hit rock bottom before he can find his way back."_

" _Have I been naïve all this time, Dad? Was I a fool to think that Booth would never relapse?"_

" _You love him, honey. You wanted to believe the best in him."_

The sensation of moisture on her hand jerked Brennan from her reverie. She hadn't even realized that she had begun to cry, and angrily brushed the tears away as she finished slicing Christine's sandwich.

A knock at the door startled her.

Sighing, Brennan made her way over to it. When she pulled it open, the sight of the person standing on the other side made her catch her breath.

"Booth?"

"Hey, Bones," Booth said sadly.

Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, Brennan asked, "Why did you knock?"

Booth glanced away for a moment as if to gather himself, then pulled his eyes back to hers, "I know you don't want me here, so I didn't want to just walk in."

Brennan continued to stare at him.

"Can I come in, Bones? I won't stay long. I just want to talk to you, maybe see Christine if that's okay?"

Brennan couldn't remember ever seeing Booth this unsure and nervous around her, and the sight sent a chill through her body as all her fears about the state of their marriage rushed to the fore.

"Yes, okay," she muttered and slowly moved aside to allow Booth to enter.

"Thanks," Booth replied, feeling strangely out of place in the house which, up until yesterday, had been his home.

Brennan walked towards the kitchen and pulled two mugs from the cupboard.

"Would you like some coffee? I just made some."

Booth stepped towards her hesitantly, "No, it's fine, I just came here to say …"

"Are you sure?" Brennan cut him off, "I just made Christine a sandwich and I was going to get one too but …"

"Bones, please?" Booth implored, trying to gain her attention even as she continued to ramble.

"Actually, I should take this to Christine first. She's hungry and I …"

"Bones!" Her name came out sharper than he had intended and Brennan abruptly stopped talking and simply stared at him, the plate holding Christine's sandwich still clutched in her hand.

Booth took a deep breath and started again, "I'm sorry, Bones. I know this is difficult for you and you probably don't want to see me right now, but I have some things I really need to say and then I'll go."

"Okay," Brennan said, placing the plate down on the counter and crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

Now that he had her attention, Booth wasn't sure where to begin. He had tried telling her he loved her and that he was sorry, but that hadn't gotten him anywhere. He felt Brennan's eyes on him as he struggled to accept that all he could give her now was the truth.

"I screwed up."

That simple statement, the same one he had used to open up to Pops, seemed to unleash the jumble of thoughts caught up inside of him.

"I didn't mean for this to happen, Bones. I swear I didn't. After the case with the poker game and I remembered how gambling made me feel, I told myself that I was in a better place than when I was doing it back then. That I was happy with you and Christine and that I could control it this time. That things would be different and I could just use it to relax and enjoy myself sometimes."

Brennan sighed and shook her head, "You're an addict, Booth. It doesn't work that way."

Booth took a deep breath before he replied, casting about in his mind for a way to explain the shades of grey to a woman who only saw the world in black and white.

"I know that's the rational way to look at addiction, Bones, and I know that's the way you see it. But that's not how it feels to me."

Brennan adjusted her stance slightly, cocking her head to the side the way she did when she was trying to understand something, "How does it feel to you?"

"It feels …" Booth hesitated, knowing how important it was that he try to make her understand, "it feels like I'm invincible. The high I get when I win makes me feel like nothing can go wrong and I'm a winner. It makes everything better. It feels like it doesn't matter if I lose, because I always believe that I'll win the next one, or the next one. Then I'll be in control again and everything will be okay."

Brennan nodded. What Booth was saying wasn't logical, but as she had learned from Sweets and her own experiences, emotions rarely were.

"I've known that you were an addict since the day we met, Booth, and as much as I wanted to believe that you would never suffer a relapse, it has always remained a possibility."

Booth held his breath, knowing he wouldn't like what was coming.

"The fact that you have relapsed is not why I asked you to leave our home. I take my marriage vows to you very seriously, and had you come to me with this when it first began I would have done my utmost to support you in your recovery."

"I know that, Bones," Booth said dejectedly.

"But you lied to me," Brennan continued, "even when I confronted you directly, even knowing as you do how incredibly difficult it is for me to trust anyone the way I have grown to trust you."

Booth looked at the floor as tears began to form in his eyes. _What the hell have I done?_ He thought to himself.

Brennan wasn't finished, "But the worst thing is," taking a deep breath as she fought back her own tears, "you put Christine and I in danger, and our unborn child. You know how afraid I have been about bringing a new life into the dangerous world we live in, and yet you brought that danger into our home. You, the man who has always told me I can count on him for protection. The man who made me believe I could trust him implicitly. The man …" her voice broke as she lost control of her tears, "the man who I fell in love with."

"Bones," Booth struggled to speak through the tightness in his throat, "I'm so sorry, please, please believe me, I love …"

He trailed off when Brennan held up her hand. "No, Booth," she said firmly, "no more words. If you want to come home and be with us again, you need to prove to me that you are willing to confront your addition and work through it, that you will not put this family in jeopardy again. I need evidence, Booth. Words are no longer enough."

Booth nodded in resignation. That was his Bones. Taking in a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and met her gaze.

"I will, Bones. I'm not going to lose you."

Brennan simply nodded as she wiped away the tears which had escaped down her cheeks.

After a few moments of silence, Booth asked, "Is it alright if I go up and see Christine for a minute?"

"Yes," Brennan replied, reaching for the sandwich on the counter and handing it to him, "please give this to her."

Booth took the plate from her and was about to turn and head upstairs when a thought suddenly occurred to him.

"What do you want me to tell her?"

Brennan squared her jaw and replied, "You created this situation, Booth. It's up to you to decide how to explain it to our daughter."

"Yeah," Booth responded quietly, already feeling the awful guilt at the pain he was about to cause his child.

Turning to go, Booth stopped once more and looked at his wife determinedly, "I will prove myself to you, Bones. I swear I will. I'll prove to you how much I love you and our family, and that you can trust me."

A ghost of a smile graced Brennan's lips, "And I'll be here when you do."

Booth couldn't help but smile in return. As he made his way upstairs, he felt a renewed sense of hope in the knowledge that Brennan had not lost all faith in him, and that she was rooting for him to give her the evidence she needed.

 _I won't let you down, Bones._ He thought to himself as he reached Christine's room _. I swear to God I won't._

 **I have mixed feelings about this story and I'm not 100% happy with it, but I'm posting it anyway. It would have been unrealistic to try and give it a neat and tidy happy ending because B &B have a lot to work through and addiction is an incredibly difficult thing to deal with. I won't rule out continuing this story in the future, but for now I'm going to leave it here and just see how things pan out on the show. Reviews would be very much appreciated. **

**One last thing. I've had quite a few messages since I wrote The Promise in the Candle a few months back asking if I'm going to write the Brennan foster care story I mentioned in the author's note at the end. The answer is yes, but only when I can force my muse to stick around for longer than one story at a time! I'm sorry for the delay. Please bear with me!**


End file.
